Home Is Where The Heard Is
by shockinglyawesome
Summary: When the crew runs upon a Saber Tooth Tigress that's still young, trouble starts. When she tells a story of revenge, the crew might just have to run for their lives, but with her along as well. Will she grab Diego's heart, or his life? R&R plz!
1. A brand new kind of aquaintence

HOME IS WHERE THE HEARD IS

SUMMARY

When the crew runs upon a Saber Tooth Tigress that's only 16, trouble starts to brew. Her name is Crystal; she is looking for the killer of her late father. But when her father turns out to have a certain old connection with the original three, Diego and Sid must convince her that sometimes family comes in a different, unexpecting way.

**CHAPTER 1- A BRAND NEW KIND OF ACQUAINTANCE** "And the sloth and slothette lived happily ever after." Sid exclaimed as the almost asleep kids looked on. "That was the most stupidest story ever!" Johnny yelled. "HEY! I worked all night on that!" "And it still sucked." Maria replied. All the kids laughed. Sid frowned and walked up to Manny. "I don't get why I can't ever get respect around here." He said. Manny looked at him. "Well, it did suck." Manny replied. Sid crossed his arms and put his head high and left. "Oh come on Sid!" He did not answer and kept walking. Sid kept walking 'till he got to an isolated forest type place. The ice had been melting more then usual, but he didn't think anything of it. If they made it through the first flood, he was sure they could make it through another. Sid sat on a rock and thought. Then, he spoke aloud to himself, "Maybe they were right, maybe I'm just not good with kids." He thought about Pinky and the three little dino's he had mainly took care of, for a day. "Nah! I'm great with kids! Just not, those kids." He thought some more then shook his head. "Man, it's hard to think! I'm too lazy to do all this! Besides, this thinking makes my head hurt." He yawned. "Well, I suppose I should get back, they probably need me to make supper with Elli again, like every other day." Yes, Sid did make supper with Elli, hmm, almost like a…MOMMY! So, he started to head back, but he wasn't alone. He heard a rustle. He looked around but nothing was there. He started picking up pace. Another rustle, still nothing, more pace, this was a fast walk. Another, now a jog. Another loud rustle, he started to run. Sid ran and ran until he heard a growl. He heard something jump out of the bushes and felt breath on his neck. He turned slowly around and screamed.

Back with the others, you could hear Sid's scream from a distance. They perked their ears up. Diego looked at Manny.

"Was that-" He wasn't able to finish before Manny took off. "Hey! Wait up!" Sid started backing away when he realized what the creature was.

"Hey, you're a Saber Tooth Tiger like Diego!" The tiger didn't care. "Um, nice Tigey, you don't want to hurt me. I-I-uh, smell bad, and taste horrible too! You wanna know what I've been through? I could have some disease that won't be discovered for years, it won't have a cure. Gag, gag! I think I already have it! Oh no!" It still got closer and growled. "Uh-Manny! Manny! I could really use some help!" No answer. "Um-how about a song? Every one loves songs! Hush little tiger don't you cry, momma's gona buy you a lullaby?" Still growled. "You know, there was this one time I got something up my butt, shoo you don't wanna know how hard it was to get it out! And I-" That's when the tiger jumped at him and he started to scream. Suddenly, an elephant sound was heard as Manny butted the tiger away. "Manny! My hero!"

"You know Sid, I keep having to continually save you from getting eaten day by day." Manny replied.

"What can I say, I am just irresistible!"

"Or they're desperate and you're really easy."

"Hey, are you gona save me or harass me?" Manny rolled his eyes as the tiger got up and growled.

"Wait a minute, that's a-" It jumped at Manny but this time Diego got it. And that's when Diego realized she was his kind. His eye's got big.

"Hey, you're a-"

"Yes, yes, we have all established I'm a Saber Tooth Tiger, Geez, you all act so surprised!" She said. "I like to put it as Tigress myself though." Their jaws were dropped. "What?"

"Well, we just haven't seen any more of you all in a long time." Diego replied.

"Huh, and I thought I was the only one who wondered that!"

"What do you mean?" Sid was still shocked that they completely forgot that she was trying to kill him.

"Uh, guys aren't you forgetting that she tried to kill me! For her dinner!" He exclaimed.

"Shut up and move out the way Sid, Geez." Diego replied. Sid was astonished and just pouted. "As you were."

"Yeah, sorry about that, I have to eat too ya know? Anyhow-" Sid was just baffled. "Sure we're not extinct, and we're not the last ones, but around here we're going down. All those humans killing our kind for our fur. It isn't right. But since it's getting warmer they're not killing us as much." Diego was surprised. "There was a whole lot of us in a group, but, something happened." She was quiet then. "We got off to a bad start, my name's Crystal, yours are?"

"I'm Diego, this is Manny the Mammoth, and Sid the Sloth." Sid looked away.

"Sorry Sid, can you forgive me?" Sid turned around angry, then smiled.

"Eh, I'm too lazy to hold a grudge!" He replied.

"So, where are the others?" Manny asked. Crystal was quiet. "Don't you have a family you belong to? You don't look that old."

"Um, well, no." They were quiet. "All my family is dead."

"Oh."

"No friends?" Sid asked.

"I'm not the friend making type."

"No kidding, going off and trying to eat everything you see." Manny hit him then saying shut-up Sid. "Ow!"

"May I ask-"

"How'd they die?" She said interrupting Diego. He was quiet. "Well, I guess I do owe you that, since I tried to eat your friend over here." Sid was surprised. "He seems nice." Her stomach growled. "But first, can I have something to eat? I'm starving over here!" They agreed and led her away.


	2. Oops

CHAPTER 2-OOPS

Crystal tore into the dead bird while the others, besides Diego, ate a salad. She was making a huge mess and spit was flying everywhere. It flung onto Manny and Sid as they flinched. She swallowed the last piece of meat then burped real loud. She cleared her throat and looked up to see everyone looking at her weirdly.

"What?" She asked.

"Nothing." Elli said. Crash and Eddie hid behind her scared.

"Even Diego doesn't eat that viciously." Eddie said. Crystal smiled then thought for a minute. She frowned then and looked at everyone sternly.

"I must warn you, this story is vicious and contains gallons of blood and gore." She said.

"Please have adult supervision of your children at all time." Sid added. Manny and Elli stared at him. "What?"

"As I was saying, we had a huge heard." She started remembering the scene, although no one else could see it, she could. "My mom died when I was born, it was too much pain. So my brothers and sisters were left, and my father. When I was 13, my brothers and sister were wiped out after these humans came and attacked us. They killed us for our fur. Like my father always said, don't trust a human, ever if they're a baby." Manny, Sid, and Diego stopped.

"Well, maybe a baby could be slightly expectable." Sid said.

"Pssst! What do they grow into? Thirsty blood sucking mammals that is!" They were quiet. "Anyways, so my father gathered up the remaining group and made a plan, we were to catch the leaders baby boy, alive, and to eat it, ALIVE!" They were quiet.

"Hey, that sounds awfully like-" Manny hit Sid saying Shut-up.

"I never figured out what happened on the day we were to get that baby. My father always wanted me to stay hidden away from the others; he said it was because I wasn't ready to be seen yet. He always took care of me though. Even if it wasn't in the greatest ways." They all looked at each other. "But, on that day, my father had told me to appear to the clan at noon. When the sun was at its center point. So, I went to the rendezvous point, and what did I find? My father pierced with ice cycles threw his body. After that, all I saw was revenge for the animal that killed my father!" They were quiet. "I searched around the crime scene and found only one clue, this," She raised her neck up and there was a brown silk cloth around it. Suddenly, Diego, Sid, and Manny remembered it with Pinky in it. "I've been looking for them ever since. But, what was really weird was that this thing had snowballs in it." They stared at Sid. "Heh, oh well. So, do you know anything?" They looked at each other.

"Um, could you give us a minute?" Manny asked. They huddled. "Well, what do we do Mr. Leave the cloth there?"

"How was I supposed to know that dude had a daughter?" Sid replied.

"We can't tell her we did it!" Diego exclaimed.

"Hey, if anyone's going to get the blame here it's Manny."

"What? Why me?" He asked.

"You're the one who threw him into the wall of ice, therefore you killed him."

"Technically, no one murdered him, the ice killed him." Diego said.

"Hey, I'm glad I killed him, that dude was capitalized e-v-I-l!" Manny added.

"Well, what do we do? Like I said, we can't tell her we did it."

"Well, maybe it wasn't the same case as we think. Maybe it was another one, just the same. Ask her what her dad's name was." Sid suggested.

"Sid, you idiot! Of course it's the same case! That'd be an awful coincident if it wasn't!"

"I'm just suggesting!" Diego thought.

"Fine, but you ask her!"

"Ok, I will!" Sid turned around to her. "What was your dads name?"

"Juno." She replied. Sid cringed and turned around.

"Yeah it's the same case."

"Really?"

"Well I say that we lie to her." Manny said.

"Like how? We say, oh hey, we don't know anything about it but we been conversing for the last 10 minutes!"

"Even if she did believe us, she'd be asking us to help her!" Sid added.

"It was a suggestion!" Manny defended himself.

"It was a bad suggestion." Diego said.

"Well, you're good at lies Diego, make something up to where she wouldn't be bothering us about it."

"Why don't we just not let her into our group?"

"We can't do that!" Sid said.

"Why not?"

"Well, she's all alone, we have to let her in."

"Of course you would say that Sid!" Manny said. "Well, why don't you tell her that we witnessed the killing then we killed the dude?"

"Why me?" Diego asked. "Why don't you do it?"

"I'm a bad liar!"

"You say lies all the time!"

"Yeah but they're sarcastic lies and are usually about Sid."

"Hey!" Sid yelled.

"But they're lies!" Diego said.

"But you can tell they're lies because all my lies are sarcastic, and I make being sarcastic really easy to tell!" Manny replied. Diego looked at Sid.

"Don't even think about me telling her that, I lie like crap! You know I tell bad lies!" Diego agreed.

"Elli, Crash and Eddie can't say it because they don't even know what we're talking about."

"So that leaves me." Diego said. Elli popped in then.

"What are you all talking about?" She asked.

"Elli, before we met you, there was an evil tiger and Diego worked with him, well, basically that whole story she just said, yeah, well, we did that." Manny said.

"Oh, oh my." She thought. "Well, if he was truly that evil, why don't you just tell her the truth?"

"Are you crazy woman?"

"Hey, she would understand I'm sure of it." They thought.

"Well Diego, go ahead then."

"What?" Diego asked.

"Yes you!"

"Why?"

"Because if I tell her that I killed her instead of saying we did it together then she'll go after Peaches and when she does, I'll have to kill her, then Elli will be mad because I killed a little girl before she killed Peaches and she'll kill me. Then Elli will be so sad that Peaches doesn't have a daddy she'll kill herself, and if you think I'm gona let my baby girl have no parents and you two bumbo's raise her you got another thing coming!"

"Ok ok!" They all turned around to see Crystal mauling a squirrel. The squirrel was screaming then Crystal spit him out.

"And don't run into my leg again! Otherwise, your acorn will get it." The squirrel made a bunch of panicky noises, grabbed his acorn and ran. They all turned back around into the huddle.

"Yeah I say we lie to her." They all agreed. They turned back around for the last time as Diego cleared his throat. "Crystal, uh, we saw the killing of your father so we killed the human that did it. That cloth was uh, the person's baby that we also killed. Sorry." She was silent.

"You all took long enough to converse over there, what was that for?"

"To see if we should tell you that or not." She stared at them sternly then smiled.

"Ok, well, thanks for killing that human then. I guess I should be going now."

"Wait!" Sid yelled. "Why don't you join our heard?"

"SID!" They all screamed.

"What?"

"You're heard?" She looked at them. "Um, kind of an unusual heard isn't it?" She asked.

"Yeah. We could always use a female tiger for Diego." Sid lifted his eyebrows up and down.

"Sid, I'm going to eat you one of these days." Diego replied. Sid backed away.

"I've been living on my own for 3 years now." She added.

"Is that where you got all those scratches?" Manny asked.

"Well, it's hard being on your own and being young, but I've done it before. When I was two, my father left me out all on my own with no one to help me, in the wilderness, until I was six." They stared at her. "It was hard, but I made it through. I'll be fine."

"But you don't have to live on your own anymore." Sid said. Crystal sighed.

"Ok, I'll be apart of you GROUP, but not heard. I like to not have a family to dread over." She walked off to get her more to eat then. "Now if you excuse me, I'm quite hungry still." She jumped into the woods.

"Even after she ate that large bird?" She popped her head out the bushes.

"Yes, I have a big appetite." She went away.

"Ouch! Sassy! Kitty got claws!" Sid stared at Diego and winked. Diego shivered and gave Sid a weird look. Diego looked back in the forest and went after her.

"Where are you going?" Manny asked.

"To find her." Diego replied.

"You feel guilty."

"I do not!"

"Yeah you do, you feel bad because you think you can't help her and now you want to because we killed her father which was a good thing, but right now, you think it is a bad." Diego was quiet. "Goodnight Diego."

"Yeah, night." He walked away.


	3. Don't Even Bother

**CHAPTER 3-DON'T EVEN BOTHER**

"Woe! So you're telling me that your hubby and his little friends killed that girls dad?" Crash asked. Elli nodded.

"That's what I'm saying." She replied.

"Wow, I don't even hate that much." Eddie agreed with Crash as they climbed up a tree to get some rest.

"Hey, it was for a good cause. If they hadn't then that baby would've died."

"Well, I think Crystal has a point, all humans are just violent hunters." Eddie added.

"Who asked you?"

"I'm just saying, what if that baby comes back and tries to kill us? Then killing Soda pop-"

"Soto."

"Ok, Soto, would've been a bad thing right?"

"Well, I suppose, but I think the baby won't do that. Besides, Manny knows best, if he killed the leader and doesn't tell the girl, then that's what we should all do."

"Which is?" Eddie and Crash both asked.

"Keep our mouths shut! No go to bed."

"Geez, you'd think she'd be over the hormones by now." Crash said.

"Boy, these hormones haven't even begun. Now go to sleep." So they did.

**Meanwhile, with Diego and Crystal…**

Diego saw Crystal laying on a rock watching some birds fly around. He walked up to her. She was about to pounce when he said,

"You know, birds are the hardest to catch." The bird saw Diego and Crystal, screamed and flew away. Crystal turned to Diego with furry.

"Thanks for pointing that out, and scaring it away!" She replied.

"I'm just saying, maybe you should try something easier, like a-" He saw an antelope. "An antelope! There we go!"

"Maybe I don't want to eat an antelope." Diego sighed. "Why are you out here?"

"Just thought I'd give you some tips on hunting." She stared at him.

"You do know you're way too old for me right?" Diego stared at her.

"Huh?"

"Sorry, but you're an old geezer compared to me, I'm young and restless, you wouldn't be able to control me." Diego was disgusted. "Oh don't give me that look. I know that's why you've been following me, you think we should, and uh-how do you say it? Continue our breed." Diego was shocked.

"You think I came out here to follow you because I like you like that?" She nodded.

"I mean, maybe it could work, if you were a little more-" She stopped and stared at him. "Daring." She jumped off the rock and to the ground.

"Woe their girl! I would never think of you like that!" She looked at him.

"What's wrong with me?" Diego stopped.

"Well, nothing, you're, uh-beautiful!"

"EW! PERVE!" Diego rolled his eyes as she walked over to a tree.

"Women; can't impress them." He said to himself. "Look, I'm just saying that you're too young for me and I for one paw, no offence or anything, but wouldn't, don't, and will never like you like that." Crystal looked down.

"Oh." She paused and looked up at the tree. "Well good, cause you're disgusting."

"Disgusting? How so?" She turned to him.

"I don't know, you just are!"

"I'm not the one flinging bird guts on everyone!"

"OH! And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're the disgusting one!"

"Really? Keep talking."

"Yeah, and you're-you're dirty looking too!"

"Um, aren't we all?"

"But you're nasty, and stupid, and you can't even hunt right!" Diego turned to her as she stared at him. It was quiet.

"I know you are but what am I?" They started getting into an argument, interrupting each other.

"You are so immature!"

"Old hag!"

"I'm a man!"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Positive! Are you sure you're a girl?"

"Well I never! Now look who's immature!"

"Well you're a little brat!" Diego yelled. Everything was quiet. She stared at him; Diego could tell by her eyes she was sad.

"Maybe that's because I don't have a dad!" Crystal turned around and ran away. Diego was surprised at her come back and looked down. He was ashamed of himself now. He had come out there to have a nice chat with her and ended up chasing her away. _Stupid Sid, Why'd he have to let her into our group anyways?_ He thought.

"It wasn't Sids fault." Diego said aloud. "Now I have to go and find her." He looked at the sky. "Great." He said sarcastically. It started to thunder and rain. "I'd better find her quick too." So he ran.

Crystal ran through the slosh and mud as the rain really began to pour. She got under a tall tree as the thunder roared and lighting struck. She got scared and cuddled closer to the tree. She started to whine as the wind howled and the tree shook. She closed her eyes as she remembered a scene. She saw her younger self. A flash of lighting struck as she saw the dark sky present day. She just kept shutting her eyes tighter and watching this scene.

In the scene, her younger self was cuddled close to a similar tree as the rain was pouring down. She looks to be about two or three, about a baby. Her younger self opens her eyes and sees her father leaving.

"Daddy!" The girl yells. Suddenly, you don't hear anything but silence. Her father turns back as the rain keeps pouring.

"If you want to be a true hunter, you have to know how to live on your own." Soto turns around and keeps walking as he hears his daughters' screams from behind of being scared.

"Daddy come back! Daddy!" She yells, she gets up and is getting ready to run after him when a tree branch falls in front of her. She screams and turns back to the tree. Everything is windy and the rain pours. Lighting hits the tree and it begins to fall upon her. She screams and closes her eyes. Present day Crystal opens her eyes as a tree branch falls on top of her. She squalls and starts to slowly pass out. She hears a voice of a man.

"Crystal!" It sounds like her father.

"Daddy?" She asks. Diego appears over her and is talking to her.

"Don't give out just yet Crystal! I'm going to get you home!" He starts trying to push the branch off with his head. The image is distorted in her view and it slowly begins to fade dark. "Stay with me Crystal!" He yells. The wind is blowing fiercely and is almost pushing Diego over.

"Diego." She says as she slowly passes out. Everything went dark.

"Crystal!"

**Authors Note:**

**Woe! Dramatic eh? Ok, for the 1****st**** chapter, his name was Soto, not Juno, sorry everyone! Please keep on reading and reviewing; it makes this story great to have some great readers! Thank you so much! Chapter 4 will be up by at least Saturday!**


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